Self-gravitating ring of matter in orbit around a black hole: The innermost stable circular orbit

Abstract: We study analytically a black-hole-ring system which is composed of a stationary axisymmetric ring of particles in orbit around a perturbed Kerr black hole of mass $M$. In particular, we calculate the shift in the orbital frequency of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) due to the finite mass $m$ of the orbiting ring. It is shown that for thin rings of half-thickness $r\ll M$, the dominant finite-mass correction to the characteristic ISCO frequency stems from the self-gravitational potential energy of the ring (a term in the energy budget of the system which is quadratic in the mass $m$ of the ring). This dominant correction to the ISCO frequency is of order $O(\mu\ln(M/r))$, where $\mu\equiv m/M$ is the dimensionless mass of the ring. We show that the ISCO frequency increases (as compared to the ISCO frequency of an orbiting test-ring) due to the finite-mass effects of the self-gravitating ring.